The present invention concerns a medical implant that is intended to be inserted into a space with a prespecified dimension and to be filled and a process for producing the medical implant.
It is known that in cases of extraction wounds bones change in such a way that the space that exists due to the extraction wound can no longer be filled by an implant whose dimension and shape corresponds exactly to the extracted hard connective tissue after a certain time period.
A loss of a tooth that arises through a trauma when the tooth is unfavorably fractured and the root fragments cannot be saved can be mentioned as an example. Consequently, one must extract the fractured tooth and its root fragments. As a replacement one has been using a bridge or removable prothesis for a long time. They have the disadvantage of involving the neighboring teeth during anchoring, and if necessary, of having to be worked on. To eliminate this disadvantage one sometimes uses immediate implants instead of the lost tooth. Because up to now they have only consisted of prefabricated, standardized alloplastic materials, the extraction sockets cannot be filled by the immediate implants, which must exactly match. As a result, hollow spaces necessarily exist between the end of the socket and the implant. During the healing process these hollow spaces are filled by quickly growing connective tissue, which prevents the complete osseo-integration of the prefabricated, standardized implants. Therefore a large share of the immediate implants that have been used up to now is again lost.
As one knows, the consequence for the loss of a tooth is the atrophy of the bone in the area of the extraction socket. All bone loss in the jaw area is extremely unfavorable for the subsequent replacement of the lost tooth. Through the loss of bone volume a later implantation of a synthetic tooth root--i.e., an enossal implant--becomes difficult. Because even when the extraction wound undergoes a normal healing process some substance from the jaw bone in the area of the jaw ridge is lost, it is impossible to place the implant in the position that corresponds exactly to that of the extracted tooth and its root. Compared with the original natural position, such an implant has been strongly shifted on a horizontal and vertical level. This fact has unfavorable aesthetic and practical effects.
Implants can also be used as a replacement for other parts of the skeleton. If, for example, the lower jaw is stricken by a tumor, the area stricken by the tumor is separated from the jaw bone and replaced by an implant. In this case as well the difficulties mentioned above occur.